My husband decided to end our marriage in October 2013. Bottom line, I am single, I am a mom, and I am a year away from turning 50. Not to mention I have two little nuggets that call me Grams. It’s not the same as 1993 when I split from my first husband. At that time I went out with other friends who were single. We hit up the bar scene. I even got into helping teach country line dancing.
Every one of my friends said the same thing: “You can do better and you need to find someone else.” Why is it that once people know we are single, the first thing that crosses their mind is to hook us up with the next available human being that exists? I know they mean well and I still love them, even though some of them tried to set me up at a time I knew I was not ready.
In South Carolina, we are required to wait 12 months before filing for divorce. At first, I thought that law was ridiculous, similar to the South Carolina law requiring your spouse to sign a consent when you want a tubal ligation. He doesn’t own my ovaries! In this instance, though, the obligatory separation time allowed me to heal before I started dating again.
My middle daughter came to visit in May after my split from her stepfather. She showed me this app on her phone which says “POF.”
“What the hell is that?” I ask.
She says, “Well, Mom. It’s called Plenty of Fish.”
She proceeded to show me – and all of these available men popped up! Some were pretty handsome, I might add. But they were her age, mid-twenties. She told me I need this app. “You need to date. You need a social life,” she pushed.
I have to admit, when I first signed up my goal was to see if my still legally married husband was out there scoping out women since he broke up with his mistress and was back dating. I set the search from his age of 47 up to age 50. What came up were 50-year old men who looked 60. I went back and changed the age to 47-48. It brought up some pretty good looking men once I did the whole profile thing.
At first, I decided not to place a profile pic on the site. I wanted men to like me for my profile, not my looks. Then I realized how hypocritical that was as I bypassed all the men’s profile with no pic. POF is a free site. My mom always said you get nothing for free. My coworker told me that she was on it and she did meet a good guy once, who chose to go back to his ex girlfriend. The others she met, total psychos. I started up a conversation with a few of them, then my ex and I started talking again and I didn’t feel the need to seek out a man. Not to mention, I was still legally married and to me that just didn’t feel right. POF for me was a no go and I eventually deleted it off my phone.
I tried How About We, another free app to a point. Eventually you have to join to get messages and such. That was a fail. Not even one conversation. And, again, the men looked like my father. I got on Tinder and my youngest daughter was devastated. She said to me, “Mom that’s a sex site!” I said, “No, it’s not!” thinking it’s been since the ice age since I had sex so maybe this is not such a bad idea. I told her they talked about it on TV. She promptly grabbed my phone and deleted the app.
My last resort was the Farmers app for single farmers. I am a country girl from a small town who basically grew up by a farm. Let me tell you, the pickings were slim. I commend these men for going on there. But, at first glance, it wasn’t for me. I saw a video on Huffpost about a farmer who saved a calf by putting it in a warm hot tub. Now that’s a farmer I could date! I wonder if has a wife. Needless to say, that app got deleted, too.
In the end, online dating was not for me. My fear of trusting someone else and what goes on in the world keeps me from wanting to meet a total stranger just by seeing his picture on a dating site. I want to meet someone the old fashioned way, through a friend, church or chance meeting. Anyone can post a pic of a model and claim it is them. You can give yourself a profile like you are Jennifer Aniston. But the truth will be revealed. I can keep part of my life a secret until that trust is earned.
I have set my standards high. Probably too high. I have come to the realization that that guy I am looking for may not exist. I don’t want a man with kids under 18 – my kids are raised. I refuse to put my kids and grandkids second. And I will be who I am and not try to impress a man. I work and I make my own money. I don’t need to be supported except with a hug once in a while and a cold beer. If he doesn’t like me the way I am then I say, “Next!”
Recently, I watched a friend with her new boyfriend and I thought, Hey, I want that. Then they started arguing where I could hear them, and I realized maybe I really like being single!
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Dear MW, Thank you for your honest comments about online dating. and please don’t feel bad, because I too also tried online dating after my husband walked out of our marriage and me 18 months ago, without a clue that he wasn’t happy and nothing was ever said. The trauma of it has had a profound effect on me, and the healing is still in the works.
Feeling lower than dirt, with feelings of abandonment when my husband left me, I was lost, scared and felt like the floor beneath me had given way, I signed up on JDate, since I am Jewish. I haven’t dated since 1979, when I met my husband, and at 56 years old, I thought maybe someone would think I was attactive enough to date, and needed a kind-of ego boost too.
But the men on JDate were not responding to me, or they were not up to par with what I was looking for, so I then tried Match.com, created a nice profile about me, with a photo, and my height and body size which is very petite, and story about my life, i.e. I was in the U.S. Navy for 10 years, born in Germany, lived in Israel in the Negev, love to sew, cook, garden, the theater, ballet, and much more, trying to weed out those I wasn’t compatable with. This time the male responses where aweful, derogatory towards me, saying ” do you like sex”, “do you want to cuddle”? or “nice body”, or long pauses while chatting, wondering what these men were doing. Umm,… No I really didn’t want to know. So I cancelled Match.com
Then, months later, feeling lonely too, I signed up for OurTime, for people over 50, Wow, the men between ages 50 and over looked beat up, fat, scruffy, and again, not flattering to me, withi surnames like “Major Orgasm” or something to that effect. I thought, this is all there is? OK Cupid which was free, and Zoosk were the last straw, and vowed never to try online dating ever again. If this means I won’t be dating, then so be it.
As Carry Bradshaw of “Sex and the City” wrote on her blog, “Do women need men to be happy? Nope, I will learn again who I am after being in a long-term marriage, giving up too much of myself, cattering to his every want and need, without any desires of my own. I am planning on moving from WA state in a few weeks to CA and will be with family too. My old life is gone, and can now thank my husband for leaving me. I too, along with you, look at other couples, married women and men who still love and respect each other after 50 years of marriage, brings tears to my eyes. Watching movies that are romantic comedies like “You’ve Got Mail” or “Pretty Women” ,allows me to still think there is someone out there I can be compatable with, who I can adore and him me. Who knows, the man I might meet soon could be standing there in the vegetable isle in the grocery store, or having coffee outside, and we strike up a conversation. Who knows?
Best to you:-)
Yes, the men close to my age have ponches, and look like my grandfather. At 57 years old, I do not want to be a cougar at all, and want someone at least in my era that I can identify with. But I do think, many of these men between 50 and 60 (or so they say they are on their profiles) look beat up, fat, ugly, beer drinking, motorcycle riding, or car loving jerks, who are self centered, use women up, and then throw them away, or want a trophy girl to be next to them while they are around their friends.
I do pay attention to my looks, am 5’3″, 109 lbs, wear a size 4, put makeup on every day, and am presentable too, because this is what makes me feel the best I can. The men my age bracket are not attractive at all, and I feel that men younger, 40 -50 are a bit young for me. Not sure what’s up with these guys over 50. Do they take a class on how to let themselves go or something? To me, they mostly seem brain dead, lacking a spark in their eyes. Maybe the years they have been in relationship themselves, working long hours, raising kids, has made them revert back to their youth, buying cars, or other indulgeces partying with their buddies because they can and no longer have responsibilites, or they have just given up in general to care about others, particualarly women. Not sure what it is, but passing on it, unless I meet someone like my mom’s second husband, who at 88 years old, still attractive, is full of life, is dating again after my mom passed away in 2004, who hosts chess tournaments, attends theater or ovies, goes out on a date to dinner, and is a warm, loving and giving man. This is wthe type of man I want. He is always warning me to be careful, because most of the men just want to get laid, and that’s it, and assure him I will.
Slim pickings indeed.